Industrial Engineering Letters
ISSN 2224-6096 (Paper) ISSN 2225-0581 (online)
Vol.3, No.10, 2013
www.iiste.org
An Empirical Study of Tourists’ Expectations and Tourists’
Perceptions with Reference to Heritages Attributes of Sri Lanka
S.Sivesan, Lecturer in Marketing, Faculty of Management Studies and Commerce, [email protected]
N.Thusyanthini, Asst.Lecturer, Department of Human Resource Management, [email protected]
Abstract
Heritage tourism is the faster growing segment in the modern business environment. This trend is evident in the
rise in the volume of tourist who searches journey, historical place, culture and interaction with local people.
The present study evaluates tourist perception of service quality. Data was collected from one hundred and
twenty tourists using a structured questionnaire. A 25 item questionnaire measuring satisfaction of tourist with
references to the heritage attributes in Sri Lanka. Sample of 120 tourists, Tourist were randomly selected. Gap
anlaysis was used to analysise the data the result shows that the dimension of the service quality such Indore
facilities has a greater gap, as the customer expectations are high in their perceived service.
Keywords: tourist, satisfaction, service Gap
1.0 Introduction
In the modern world, tourism industry plays vital role in the world economic growth and development as well as
Sri Lankan economic growth and development. Sri Lanka is a small and beautiful island, which is situated in
Indian Ocean. There are nine provinces, comprising twenty five districts and one hundred and thirty four towns
in the country. The total area of Sri Lanka covers 65610 km2. Small, with mountain in the center where tea
plantation are situated and a coast – line fringed with sandy breaches that attract tourists from all over the world.
In Sri Lanka, tourism performs role not only within the economic sphere but also in the social and cultural
sphere.
Tourism is one of the fastest growing industries globally, including in the developing world (Tosum, 2001).
Many developing countries identified the contribution of tourism industry which can make to economic
development (Sharpley, 2000). Employment generation, foreign exchange earnings and community welfare are
aspects of tourism induced development considered in most of the relevant literature (Andriotis, 2002).
However, the possible contribution of the tourism industry is heavily influenced by the international economic
and political stability, as well as by terrorist threats and civil unrest in the tourist destination in question (World
Travel and Tourism Council, 2003).
In 2011, the Sri Lanka economy recorded an impressive growth of 8.3 per cent, the highest in Sri Lanka’s post
independence history, sustaining a growth momentum of over 8 per cent for the first time in two consecutive
years. The services sectors grew by 8.6 per cent in 2011. The hotels and restaurants sub sector grew sharply by
about 26.4 per cent underpinned by the strong performance in tourism. Investors and consumer’s confidence are
continuously arising from the peace dividend, favourable macro economic conditions, increased capacity
utilization and expansion of infrastructure facilities. Tourism has become a large industry in Sri Lanka as well
as world. Nowadays, culture and heritage tourism is the faster growing segment of the industry. This study helps
to reduce the gap between theories of cultural tourism and practice of cultural tourism.
This study expresses the relationship between features of heritage tourism and customer satisfaction.
Furthermore, this study identifies which attributes satisfy tourist who visit cultural or heritage destinations could
help tourism planners develop strategies to attract customers. This study tries to disclose the effect of attributes
of heritage tourism on tourist satisfaction. Many national and international entrepreneurs and investor are
searching new opportunities to establish their business in the global economic arena. After a Thirty (30) years
civil war, Sri Lanka economy has shown significant changes in several sectors. In Sri Lanka, nowadays, many
infrastructures development projects are ongoing in successful manner. The country is in search of foreign direct
investments to expand the national economy rapidly, as the existing capital structure proves inadequate to meet
such a huge expansion. The return from the economic which are in rapid recovery and expansion trends to be
comparatively higher than well – established economies. So, innovative entrepreneurs definitely will contribute
to emerging Sri Lankan economy. This study investigates to determinant factors on tourist feasibility of
investment environment on tourism in Sri Lanka.
2.0 Objective of this study
Main objective of this study was to find out gap between tourist expectation and tourist perception. Following
two objectives are
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Industrial Engineering Letters
ISSN 2224-6096 (Paper) ISSN 2225-0581 (online)
Vol.3, No.10, 2013
1.
2.
www.iiste.org
To evaluate the satisfaction of tourist
To suggest the government to improve the tourist satisfaction:
3.0 Literature Review
The word heritage is generally associates with the word “inheritance”, that is, something transferred from one
generation to another. Heritage tourism is a board field of specialty travel, based on nostalgia for the past and
desire to experience diverse cultural landscapes and forms. It includes travel to festivals and other cultural
events, visit to sites and monuments travel to study nature, folklore or art or pilgrimages. (Eppel, and hall, 1992).
Most of the researchers clearly said that hostel area people have favorable attitude towards tourism as long as
industry constitutes an important source of economic development for the regin(Andereck 2005; Gilbert &clarrk
1997) satisfaction can be defined as “a judgment that a product or service itself, provides a pleasurable level of
consumption related fulfillment”(Oliver, 1997)
Janghyeon Nam, YukselEkinci and Georgina (2011) find out that mediating effect of customer satisfaction on
the relationship between consumer based brand equity and brand loyalty. Consumer satiseaction generally is
essential to long term business success, and one of the most frequently researched topics in marketing (jones
&Suh, 2000, pappu&Questev, 2006).Most of the business organizations wish to maintain higher level customer
satisfaction. Tourism contributes to sustainability if it is integrated into a greater sustainable development
context with in a community (Ioannides, 2001). There are some empirical studies that how residents’ degree of
interaction with tourists can affect residents’ attitude towards the development of tourism (Belisle& Hoy, 1980;
Gursoy 2002).
Heritage tourism is defined by the national trust for historic preservation (NTHP) as “traveling to experience the
places, artifacts, and activities that authentically represent the stories and people of the past and present. It
includes cultural, historical and natural resources” (National Trustfor Historic preservation, 2008). These
resources can encompass a wide variety of artifacts, events, ways of life, and historical themes, including art and
music, architecture, dress, education, themed festivals and events gastronomy, handicrafts, historical sites,
language, religion, sense of place, and the work environment and technology. The following hypotheses have
been taken for this study which is crafted based on the literature review.
H1:- There is gap between the expectation of tourist and perception of tourist regarding to heritage attributes.
H2:- There is no gap between the expectation of tourist and perception of tourist regarding to heritage attributes.
5.1 Data collection
The primary and secondary data were collected for the survey. Primary data were collected through
questionnaires and secondary data were collected from books, journals, magazine etc.
5.2 Sampling
Researcher used the scarify random sampling method to collect the data from domestic tourist as well as
international tourist. One hundred and sixty questionnaires have been administrated but one hundred and twenty
questionnaires received. Following table clearly shows details of the demographic variables of respondent.
Table No -01 Demographic Characteristic of the Respondents
Variable
Frequency
Percentage
Male
73
60%
Gender
Female
47
40%
18 -30
12
10%
31 - 40
32
27%
41 - 50
29
24%
51 - 60
18
15%
Age
61+
29
24%
India
49
41%
USA
18
15%
Europ
26
21%
Country
other Country
27
23%
19,999 Less
11
9%
20,000 - 39,999
19
16%
40,000 - 59,999
26
22%
60,000 - 79,999
33
27%
House Holder Annual Income
80,000 Above
31
26%
The gender distribution of the respondents was quite even, with 40% female respondents and 60% male
respondents.
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Industrial Engineering Letters
ISSN 2224-6096 (Paper) ISSN 2225-0581 (online)
Vol.3, No.10, 2013
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The dominant age group of the respondents was 31 to 40 years (27%), followed by 41 to 50 years (24%), 51 to
60 years (15%), and 61 years and older (24%), whereas 18 to 30 years (10%) made up the smallest group,
representing 10% of the respondents. Most of the respondents (49%) came from India, and 23 % of the
respondents live in Europe Countries.
With regard to respondents' annual household income, the largest group included those with an annual household
income of US $60,000 - 79,000 (27%), followed by US $20,000 to US $39,999 (16%), and only 9% of the
respondents had an annual household income of US $19,999 or below.
5.3 Data collection Instruments
Data were collected through the questionnaire, which is prepared with seven point Likert scale ranging from
excellent to poor. Then data were converted into quantitative manner and then the analyses were made. Using the
above information the following model was formulated.
This questionnaire consists of two parts. Part – I age, gender, origin, and total household incomes. Other part
comprise twenty three indicators to evaluate the toursit of satisfaction namely, art and music, architecture, dress,
education, themed festivals and events gastronomy, handicrafts, historical sites, language, religion, sense of
place, and the work environment and technology.
6.0 Result and Discussion
6.1 Results between Tourists’ Expectations and perception with Attributes
Table No -02 Expectation-Satisfaction Analyses
S.No Factors Name
1 Historical building
2 cultural Village
3 Museums
4 Mountain
5 Galleries
6 Traditional Scenery
7 Arts
8 Architecture
9 Festivals Events
10 Historical people
11 Religious people
12 Food
13 shopping place
14 Information Centers
15 Atmoshere
16 Indore facilities
17 Accessibility
18 Expensiveness
19 Climate
20 Accommodation
21 Tour packages
22 Guides
23 souvenirs
24 Theme parks
25 Theater
26 Handicraft
Perception
5.603
5.043
4.986
5.245
5.053
5.504
4.6
5.1
5.416
5.525
5.108
5.317
5.150
5.567
5.517
4.975
5.294
5.725
5.883
5.825
4.966
5.516
5.294
5.294
5.108
5.317
Expectation
4.894
4.946
5.764
4.643
4.987
5.094
5.05
5.208
4.983
4.716
5.242
5.458
5.283
5.294
5.158
5.791
5.725
5.9
5.808
4.508
5.725
5.158
5.517
4.975
5.294
5.725
Gap
0.709
0.097
-0.778
0.602
0.066
0.410
-0.450
-0.108
0.433
0.809
-0.133
-0.142
-0.133
0.273
0.358
-0.816
-0.431
-0.175
0.075
1.317
-0.759
0.358
-0.223
0.319
-0.186
-0.408
Above table represents the gap score for tourist in Sri Lanka. The difference between expectation and perception
of tourist is the gap score, which is then averaged for each dimension. The average levels of satisfaction with
various attributes of heritage tourism were calculated for overall sample. Tourists have high expectaion compare
the perception regarding to the following variable namely, indorefacilities, museum, tour package, arts,
acceessability, handicraft, souvenirs, theater, food, religious people, architecture and expensiveness. Tourists
were satisfied with following variable like galleries, climate, cultural village, information centers, theme parks,
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Industrial Engineering Letters
ISSN 2224-6096 (Paper) ISSN 2225-0581 (online)
Vol.3, No.10, 2013
www.iiste.org
guides, atmoshere, traditional scenery, festivals events, mountain, historical building, historical people, and
accommodation.
6.2 Tourist’s overall Level of Satisfaction with the heritage attributes in Sri Lanka
Table No -03 Tourists’ Overall Level of Satisfaction with the heritage attributes of Sri Lanka
Variable
Frequent
Percentage (%)
Extremely dissatisfied
1
0.83%
Very dissatified
2
1.66%
Dissatisfied
8
6.66%
Neutral
31
25.83%
Satisfied
40
33.33%
Very satisfied
28
23.33%
Extremely satisfied
10
8.33%
Total
120
100%
Above table clearly shows that 64.99% of the respondents indicated that they were satisfied, very satisfied and
extremely satisfied with heritage attributes of Sri Lanka. 25.83% were neutral in their opinions and 25.83%, and
9.156% of the respondents were dissatisfied, very satisfied and extremely dissatisfied.. The mean value of
respondents’ overall perceived level of satisfaction was 5.454, which tended toward the high end of the
satisfaction scale.
7.0 Conclusion and Implication
Gap analysis show that indore facility shows a bigger gap between tourists’ expectation and perception. The
government has to reduce this gap giving attention to improve the indore facilities. Next highest gap was
observed in the tour package. Most of tourist are expecting better tourist package. Tourists have bigger
satisfaction with accommodation facilities. Based on the result of this study, several recommendations can be
suggested to improve the satisfaction of tourist with the heritage attributes.
Sri Lankan tourist board should focus more on maintaining or improving factors that contribute to the overall
satisfaction of tourists. For example, the content of brochures and Web-sites about the heritage attributes
attractions should reflect such features as handicrafts, architectures, traditional scenery, and arts as part of the
Heritage Attractions, and museums, galleries, cultural villages, historical buildings, and monuments as part of
Culture Attractions.
Museums and other historical places like Sigiriya Galviharaya polonnaruwa should be maintained in proper
ways. These kinds of place are very important to attract the tourist. Government or Sri Lankan Tourist Board
need to concentrate on development of international airport as well as highway and railway tracks. Ayurvedic
treatment centres, spa & massage treatments resort have to be developed attached to the tourist hotels. Most of
the tourist have dissatisfaction with cost living. So, government needs to takes the action to reduce the
expensiveness.
Furthermore, the study classified high-satisfaction and high expectation attributes, high-satisfaction and low
expectation attributes, low-satisfaction and high expectation attributes, and low-satisfaction and low-expectation
attributes through expectation-satisfaction analysis. This classification will help tourism marketers and planners
to maintain or enhance their strengths and improve their weaknesses. marketers should make presentations and
interpretations of the cultural/heritage destination by using multimedia in order to improve low-expectation
attributes (weaknesses).
To conclude, in order to create effective marketing strategies for products and services in the cultural/heritage
tourism market, a better understanding of tourists who visit to the cultural/heritage destinations is necessary.
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